Soberful

Duane Osterlind is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist who specialises in helping people overcome sex addiction. He explains that sex addiction is a way to get connection and intimacy but remains unfulfilling and compulsive. Duane explains that it's essential to understand how shame factors into sex addiction and that dealing with shame is crucial to recovery. He also talks about how it affects partners and the trauma of betrayal. But that a marriage can survive, and someone can recover from sex addiction. To learn more, visit the show notes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Early sobriety is a unique experience, not to be judged or assumed as a reflection of the long term. Veronica shared her insights into the processes that unfold in the first year. The physical changes, the brain's self-repair, and the emotional processes are all part of this unique journey. To learn more, visit the show notes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Artist and director of the Create Now Academy Sarah Gillespie joins Veronica to discuss The Call of the Self. How addiction prevents us being who we really are. And that the calling of an artist is the same as the calling to stop drinking. To learn more, visit the show notes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Breaking the cycle of drinking - Bonus episode Sign up here: https://go.soberful.com/break-the-cycle Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Veronica breaks down why emotional sobriety is essential if you want to stay sober, what it is and how it works. To learn more, visit the show notes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, we are going to learn what it's like to be in a relationship with someone who is deep into addiction. Imagine being a young woman who gets involved with an older man who dazzles her. Imagine that you get pregnant by that man, and despite promising that he would stand by you, he, in fact, abandons you and denies paternity. Imagine that man gets sober and remarries, and his whole family pretends that you and your child don't exist. Imagine that man is the son of the most powerful man on earth. Today, we are going to hear Lunden Roberts's story. Lunden is the mother of a little girl named Navy, whose father is Hunter Biden and whose grandfather is President Joe Biden. Lunden Roberts has written a book called Out of the Shadows, which details her dysfunctional relationship with Hunter, his constant fear of being the family black sheep, and Lunden's fight to have the Biden family recognise her daughter. To learn more, visit the show notes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How do you know if you are one? Chip takes Veronica through the criteria you need to meet to find out how serious your alcohol problem is. The outcome will shock you. To learn more, visit the show notes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Codependency is the fear of someone else's feelings. Veronica does a deep-dive with Dr. Sarah Michaud who talks about her book 'Co-crazy - One Psychologist's Recovery from Codependency and Addiction. To learn more, visit the show notes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this solo episode, Veronica explains why an alcohol problem appears on the inside long before it appears on the outside. Most people think an alcohol problem is a homeless person or someone who gets DUIs. Veronica explains how that is misleading, and an alcohol problem shows up in our feelings (shame, guilt, fear, anxiety) long before anyone can see it. We become adept at hiding how we feel and what is happening. She also explains how no one realises when their drinking crosses the line, from drinking to having fun to needing a drink to cope. This episode will help anyone who is wondering about their drinking and wants to truly understand that getting sober is 10% not drinking alcohol and 90% emotional sobriety. To learn more, visit the show notes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

An alcohol problem shows up on the inside long before it shows up on the outside. When people saw Julie, she looked like an attractive, busy mom who had everything: a great husband, a business and a great lifestyle. What they couldn't see was how she felt on the inside, the shame, self-loathing and guilt from her drinking. Julie looked for help from a wellness professional who told her to drink organic wine as it was better for you and from a therapist who told her as she didn't drink in secret, she couldn't have a problem. But Julie knew she did. She finally stopped two years ago and has been on a journey of self-discovery ever since. Her husband now tells her she is way more fun sober. Julie is like so many women, quietly struggling and falling apart and using alcohol as a way to reward herself for just surviving the day. Her story will inspire you. To learn more, visit the show notes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Veronica and Chip discuss the rise of microdosing. Is microdosing just high-end drinking? Dressed up drug taking? Or, does it have the ability to help people navigate life and heal trauma? To learn more, visit the show notes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Laura Willoughby from Club Soda joins Veronica to discuss how the alcohol market has changed and continues to change. They start by remembering what drinking was like for them in the 1990's, how they were encouraged as women to drink until they passed out. They then look at how much the culture has shifted, with young people either choosing not to drink or drinking occasionally. Laura explains that the alcohol-free market is continuing to expand and that, yes, you can get a good alcohol-free wine. Because of these changes, how we socialise has changed a lot, with people wanting to have experiences and food rather than just drinking to get drunk. They end by emphasising how important it is to have alcohol-free spaces and how they are growing in England, America and even France. To learn more, visit the show notes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When we get stuck in blame, we become powerless. Chip and Veronica explore how we blame circumstances and other people for our alcohol problem. Blaming is a psychological defence mechanism to justify our drinking behaviour, but it also means we stay stuck in a harmful place. Everybody has 'stuff'. Lots of people who have a drug or alcohol problem had childhood experiences that were harmful, hurtful or abusive. These need to be validated and acknowledged so healing can take place, but ultimately, we get to a point where we need to consider: It's not what happens to you but how you choose to respond to what happens to you that really matters. To learn more, visit the show notes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The mother-daughter relationship is one of the most important and powerful relationships of our lives. But it can also be one of the hardest. From the unrealistic expectations placed on mothers to navigating when daughters change from children to adolescents to women. Daughters learn what being a woman is like from their mothers, and they may not necessarily want to be like their mothers. Hilary Mae is a therapist who specialises in the mother-daughter relationship and helps women navigate communication and healing. She discusses ways we can communicate with each other and how to listen to what our mother or daughter needs from us. A powerful conversation about complicated relationships. To learn more, visit the show notes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The biggest obstacle to getting sober is the Fear Of Missing Out (or FOMO). But what are we scared of missing out on? In this episode, Chip and Veronica explore how feelings of missing out are very human because we are programmed to belong and connect. When we analyse what we are afraid of missing out on if we stop drinking, it is very undefinable. We have a fantasy in our heads about how we think drinking is going to be, but the reality is very different. Chip and Veronica also explore how alcohol makes us miss out on so much in life. That you don't miss out on the sobriety you gain. To stay sober, we have to shift our perceptions. When we perceive that alcohol is the best way to have fun, relax and reward ourselves, stopping will feel hard. But if our perception shifts and we see that the cost of our drinking far outweighs any benefit, we no longer feel like we are missing out. We see that alcohol is causing us to miss our lives. To learn more, visit the show notes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Social media is addiction by design. Dr. Nicholas Kardaras joins Veronica to talk about social media addiction and how it was deliberately designed to hijack our dopamine system and get us hooked. It's digital candy and we are enticed into displaying our idealised internal lives. Dr. Kardaras explains how predatory algorithms work and how they are responsible for creating a mental health crisis for young people. To learn more, visit the show notes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What happens when we get complacent about our sobriety? Chip and Veronica discuss the times they had got complacent about their recovery. When they stopped going to meetings and stopped doing all the work they did to remain emotionally sober, Veronica shared her tool of 'when I'm ok with me, I don't have to make you wrong.' And how she uses that as a guide. When she notices that she is picking at or criticising other people, it's usually an indication that she is not ok and needs to do something to take care of her mental and emotional health. No matter how long we have been sober, we still need to connect with other sober people. Whatever sobriety program we work in, we need its principles to guide us for the rest of our lives. To learn more, visit the show notes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What do you do when the worst thing in the world happens? Cammie Wolf Rice lost her son to opioid addiction. He was a gifted student who was prescribed oxycontin for an operation and started a 14-year battle with opioids. After his death, Cammie used her pain as power. Learn how she is creating real change so nothing like this happens to another family. To learn more, visit the show notes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After bartending her way across Hollywood and Beverly Hills, Angela was in over her head with a drinking problem that was relentless. She got sober in 2006 and dedicated her life to helping others do the same. She joins Veronica to discuss how to deal with boredom in sobriety and how we need to take responsibility for our lives and experiences. To learn more, visit the show notes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Veronica interviews Dr. Christine Gibson about the link between trauma and addiction. how trauma impacts our physical health and how the brain responds to trauma. They discuss EFT and how effective matrix reimprinting is in healing trauma. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices